FIRA Bill Calls For Special "Freight Fee"

A new bill has been introduced to Congress by Adam Smith (D-WA) in hopes generating more revenues for transportation infrastructure needs. The bill was introduced on January 10th and is called the Freight Infrastructure Reinvestment Act of 2014, or FIRA. The bill will charge a user fee of 1% on the freight cargo. The funds collected from the fee would be placed into the National Freight Moblity Infrastructure Fund that would be managed by the US DOT. The monies would be used to provide competitive grants to improve infrastructure. Infrastructure improvement are estimated to cost 2.75 trillion by 2020 if no work is completed prior to that. You can read more about the bill here.